Chapter 1: The Ghost in the Cornfields
I came back to Ohio to bury the past, not to dig up new graves. But trouble has a way of finding you, especially when you’ve spent the last decade hunting it down in places most people can’t find on a map.
My name is Jack. At least, that’s what my driver’s license says. For the last twelve years, I was just a call sign, a rank, a number on a dog tag. I got out three months ago. Medical discharge. They said it was my knee, but we all knew it was the other stuff. The stuff that keeps you awake at 3:00 AM, sweating through the sheets, reaching for a rifle that isn’t there.
My sister, Sarah, thinks I’m just “adjusting” to civilian life. She’s a good woman, worn down by single motherhood and double shifts at the diner. She thinks I spend my days fixing up the old Ford in the driveway and drinking black coffee on the porch, staring at the endless rows of cornfields that surround our small town.
She doesn’t know that my eyes are always scanning the perimeter. She doesn’t know that I memorize the license plates of every car that drives down our dead-end road. She doesn’t know that I sleep with one eye open, listening to the creaks of the house, analyzing them for threats.
And she definitely didn’t know what was happening to her daughter, Emily.
Emily is sixteen. She used to be a firecracker—loud, laughing, full of life. But since I’ve been back, she’s been a ghost. She comes home, heads straight to her room, and blasts music. Sarah says it’s just “teenage stuff.”
I know better. I know the look of a person who is living in fear. It’s the same look I saw in the eyes of villagers in Kandahar. It’s the look of someone who knows they are being hunted and believes no one is coming to save them.
It started on a Tuesday afternoon. The air was crisp, smelling of dry leaves and approaching winter. I was sitting on the porch steps, sharpening my pocket knife, whittling a piece of cedar into nothingness. The yellow school bus hissed to a stop at the end of the long gravel driveway.
Emily stepped off. She wasn’t alone.
A red Mustang, polished to a shine that looked out of place on our dirt road, was creeping along beside her. The windows were down. I couldn’t hear the specific words from where I sat, about fifty yards away, but I could read the body language perfectly.
The driver was leaning out, shouting something. He was laughing. Emily wasn’t. She was walking fast, head down, clutching her backpack to her chest like it was a ballistic shield. She stumbled on the gravel, and the car honked—a sharp, mocking sound.
I stopped whittling. I set the knife down on the wood railing.
The Mustang sped off as Emily reached the mailbox, tires screeching, kicking up a cloud of dust that hung in the autumn air like smoke. I saw the sticker on the back windshield as it fishtailed away: Lincoln High Varsity Football.
The kings of this small town. The untouchables.
Emily walked up the driveway. She saw me sitting there and immediately wiped her face. She tried to smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Hey, Uncle Jack,” she mumbled, trying to brush past me.
“Who was that, Em?” I asked. My voice is gravelly these days, softer than it used to be, but heavier.
“Nobody,” she said quickly. Too quickly. “Just some guys from school being idiots.”
She shifted her bag, and her sleeve rode up. I saw it. Just for a second. A dark purple bruise on her wrist, shaped like fingers.
“Emily,” I said, standing up. My knee popped, a reminder of a bad jump in bad terrain. “What happened to your arm?”
She yanked her sleeve down. “I fell in gym class. Serious, Uncle Jack. Drop it.”
She slammed the screen door behind her.
That night at dinner, the house was quiet. Sarah was tired, Emily was silent, and I was calculating. I’ve assessed threat levels in war zones. I know when an insurgency is brewing. This wasn’t just bullying. This was escalation.
I didn’t sleep that night. I sat in the dark living room, watching the red numbers on the VCR clock change, planning my mission.
I wasn’t a soldier anymore. I didn’t have a squad. I didn’t have air support. But I had a niece who was scared to death. And in my book, that made this a combat zone.
Chapter 2: The Kill Box
I decided to take a walk the next afternoon.
I put on my old field jacket. It’s worn at the elbows and smells like garage oil, but it hides things well. I didn’t take a gun. I didn’t need one. In close quarters, with untrained hostiles, a gun is just a liability. I am the weapon.
I parked my truck three blocks away from the high school and walked to the edge of the football field. It was 3:30 PM. The bell had rung.
The school is one of those sprawling brick fortresses built in the 70s. Behind the manicured football field and the bright lights of the stadium lies the town’s rotting past: the old textile mill. It’s been shut down for twenty years. A skeleton of American industry, just rusting beams, shattered glass, and graffiti.
It sits right behind the visitor bleachers, separated only by a chain-link fence that teenagers had cut a hole in years ago. It’s a blind spot. A dead zone. No cameras. No teachers. Just shadows and bad intentions.
I leaned against a large oak tree, blending into the shade. I waited.
Ten minutes later, I saw Emily. She was walking alone, taking the shortcut behind the bleachers to avoid the main parking lot. She was trying to stay invisible.
Then I saw them.
The red Mustang was parked near the equipment shed. Three of them got out. They were big kids. Corn-fed, lifting weights since they were twelve, pumped full of hormones and entitlement. They wore their letterman jackets like armor.
They moved with a predator’s confidence. They knew the terrain. They knew the schedule.
When Emily walked past the corner of the bleachers, they cut her off. It was a coordinated flank. Two went left, one went right. They steered her toward the hole in the fence.
I saw Emily stop. She backed up, shaking her head. The leader—the driver of the Mustang—stepped into her personal space. He was a blonde kid, handsome in a cruel way, with a jawline that probably got him out of speeding tickets. He grabbed her backpack strap and yanked.
She stumbled toward the fence.
“Come on, Em,” I heard him shout. “Don’t be a prude.”
They shoved her through the hole in the fence, into the overgrown yard of the textile mill.
My heart rate didn’t spike. It actually slowed down to a rhythmic thud. Thump. Thump. Thump. That’s what training does. The panic vanishes. The world goes quiet. The tunnel vision sets in.
I began to move.
I didn’t run. Running attracts attention. I moved with a fast, fluid walk, keeping my profile low. I crossed the grass, slipped through the gap in the fence, and entered the mill’s yard.
The ground was covered in debris—rusted metal shards, old bricks, wet leaves. I navigated it without making a sound. I was a ghost in their machine.
I reached the back of the main warehouse building. The heavy corrugated metal sliding door was jarred open about four feet.
I could hear them inside. The acoustics of the empty concrete shell amplified their voices.
“You think you can just ignore us?” It was the blonde kid. His voice echoed off the walls. “We run this school. We run this town. You answer when we call.”
“Please, Brody, let me go,” Emily’s voice was shaking, on the verge of tears. “I have to get home.”
“You’ll get home when we say you can.”
I heard the sound of a heavy bag hitting the concrete floor. Then the scuff of sneakers.
I moved to the threshold of the door. The light inside was dim, filtered through grime-covered skylights high above. Dust motes danced in the shafts of light.
They had her backed against a rusting conveyor belt. It was a classic trap. Two of the goons were blocking her exit paths, arms crossed, smirking. Brody, the leader, was stepping closer to her, reaching out to touch her hair.
They were big. They were strong. But they were incredibly sloppy. They were loud. Their backs were to the entrance. They had zero situational awareness. They thought they were the apex predators because they could throw a football fifty yards.
They had no idea they had just walked into a kill box.
I stepped through the gap in the door. I let my boot crush a piece of glass. Crunch.
I wanted them to know.
Brody froze. His hand hovered inches from Emily’s face. He spun around, annoyance flashing across his face. He probably expected a janitor, or maybe a freshman he could stuff into a locker.
He didn’t expect me.
I stood in the shadows of the doorway, hands loose at my sides. I stared at him. I didn’t blink.
“Get lost, old man,” Brody barked, trying to recover his swagger. “This is private business.”
I didn’t say a word. I just took one step forward. The sound of my boot hitting the concrete was heavy, final.
The air in the warehouse changed. It got thick. The other two boys uncrossed their arms. They sensed it too—the shift from “bullying” to “danger.”
“I said beat it!” Brody yelled. He stepped away from Emily and started walking toward me, puffing out his chest. “You deaf or something?”
He walked right up to me. He was tall, maybe an inch shorter than me, but broader. He shoved my chest with both hands.
It was like shoving a support pillar. I didn’t sway. I didn’t step back. I looked down at his hands on my jacket, then slowly raised my eyes to meet his.
“You have three seconds to walk away,” I said. My voice was low, barely a whisper, but it carried a weight that terrified him. He just didn’t know it yet.
He laughed. A nervous, incredulous laugh. He looked back at his friends for validation. “Get a load of this guy. You think you’re tough? You know who my dad is?”
“One,” I counted.
“My dad is the Mayor, you hobo,” Brody sneered. He balled his hand into a fist.
“Two,” I said.
He swung.
It was a telegraphed, sloppy, wide haymaker aimed at my jaw. He put all his weight behind it. If it had connected, it might have hurt.
It didn’t connect.
I stepped inside the arc of his punch. My movement was a blur, muscle memory taking over. I caught his wrist with my left hand, twisting it slightly to lock the joint. At the same moment, I drove my right forearm into his solar plexus.
It wasn’t a lethal strike. I held back. But it was enough to shut down his diaphragm instantly.
He didn’t scream. He couldn’t. He made a sound like a deflating tire—wheeze—and his eyes bulged out of his head. He folded in half, gasping for air that wouldn’t come.
I released his wrist, and he dropped to his knees, clutching his stomach, retching.
I looked up at the other two. They were staring at their leader on the ground, then at me. Their mouths were open.
“You broke him!” one of them yelled, panic rising in his voice. “He killed Brody!”
“He’s not dead,” I said calmly, stepping over the gasping boy. “He’s just learning.”
I walked toward the other two. I walked toward Emily.
“Get away from us!” The biggest one, a linebacker type, reached into his jacket pocket.
I saw the glint of metal. A switchblade.
The stakes just went up.Chapter 3: The Edge of the Blade
The metallic click of the switchblade echoed through the hollow warehouse like a gavel striking a judge’s bench. It changed everything.
Until that moment, this was just a scuffle. A lesson in manners. But a blade? A blade introduces the probability of death. It changes the rules of engagement from “control” to “neutralize.”
The kid holding it—a linebacker nicknamed “Tank” if the lettering on his jacket was anything to go by—was shaking. That was the most dangerous part. A professional holds a knife steady, close to the body, conserving energy. An amateur waves it around like a magic wand, fueled by adrenaline and panic. Amateurs are unpredictable.
“Stay back!” Tank yelled. His voice cracked, betraying the fear behind his aggression. “I’ll cut you, man! I swear to God!”
I looked at the blade. Cheap steel, maybe three inches long. Enough to puncture a lung or slice an artery if he got lucky.
I looked at Emily. She was pressed against the rusting conveyor belt, her hands over her mouth, eyes wide with absolute terror. She wasn’t breathing.
“Emily,” I said, my voice calm, flat, devoid of the violence that was coiling inside my muscles. “Close your eyes.”
“Uncle Jack…” she whimpered.
“Close them. Now.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Good. She didn’t need to see this.
I turned my attention back to Tank. I took a slow breath, inhaling the scent of stale oil and damp concrete.
“You pulled a weapon,” I said softly. “That was a mistake.”
“Shut up!” Tank lunged.
It was a clumsy thrust, aimed at my stomach. He overcommitted, putting all his weight forward, expecting me to back away. Most people back away from a knife. It’s instinct.
But I’m not most people.
I stepped in.
I moved into his guard, closing the distance before the blade could reach full extension. My left hand shot out, not to block, but to intercept. I caught his wrist mid-air. My grip was iron. I felt the bones of his forearm shift under my fingers.
At the same time, I stepped behind his lead leg.
With a sharp, precise twist of my hips, I leveraged his own momentum against him. I rotated his wrist outward—a technique that forces the joint against its natural range of motion.
There was a sickening pop.
Tank screamed. The knife clattered to the concrete floor, spinning away into the dust.
He was wide open now. Defenseless. In a war zone, I would have finished it. A strike to the throat or the temple. It would have been over in a heartbeat.
But this was Ohio. This was a high school kid, however misguided.
So I showed mercy.
I drove my elbow into the meat of his shoulder, deadening the nerve, and swept his legs out from under him. He hit the ground hard, the wind knocked out of him, landing next to his leader, Brody, who was still wheezing on the floor.
That left the third one.
He was smaller than the other two. Skinny, dark hair, standing near the exit. He had watched his two friends—the kings of the school—get dismantled in under ten seconds.
He looked at me. Then he looked at the door.
“Don’t,” I said.
He froze.
“If you run,” I told him, stepping over Tank’s groaning form, “I will find you. And if you think this was bad, you have no imagination for what happens next.”
The kid began to shake. He raised his hands, palms open. “I… I didn’t do anything. I just watched. Please.”
“That’s the problem,” I said, walking until I was inches from his face. I towered over him. “You watched. You watched them corner a girl. You watched them terrorize her. You’re not innocent. You’re an accomplice.”
He started to cry. Silent tears streaming down a terrified face.
I reached out and grabbed the collar of his varsity jacket. I pulled him close. “Pick them up.”
“W-what?”
“Pick. Them. Up,” I enunciated. “Get your friends. Put them in the car. And leave.”
The skinny kid scrambled to obey. He helped Brody, who was still clutching his stomach, unable to stand fully upright. Then he dragged Tank, who was nursing his wrist and sobbing, toward the exit.
They looked like a defeated army retreating from a massacre.
As they stumbled toward the gap in the massive sliding door, Brody paused. He looked back at me. His face was a mask of hate and pain.
“You’re dead,” Brody wheezed, spitting a glob of saliva on the floor. “My dad… the police… you’re dead.”
I stared at him. “Tell your dad,” I said. “Tell the police. Tell everyone. But tell them this: If any of you ever go near my niece again, I won’t stop at a bruised ego and a sprained wrist. I will burn your world down.”
Brody blanched. He turned and limped out into the sunlight.
I listened to their footsteps crunch on the gravel, then the sound of car doors slamming. The engine of the Mustang roared to life and sped away, faster than it had arrived.
Silence returned to the mill.
I turned around. Emily was still standing against the conveyor belt, eyes squeezed shut, trembling like a leaf in a storm.
The adrenaline in my blood began to fade, replaced by a cold, heavy sadness. I wasn’t a hero. Heroes don’t terrify teenage girls. I was just a man who knew how to hurt people, and I had just done it in front of the one person I wanted to protect from that world.
“Em,” I whispered.
She opened her eyes. They were wet, red-rimmed. She looked at me, then at the empty warehouse, then back at me.
And then she ran.
She didn’t run away. She ran to me. She slammed into my chest, burying her face in my field jacket, sobbing uncontrollably.
I wrapped my arms around her, holding her tight, resting my chin on the top of her head. I felt her tears soaking through my shirt.
“I’ve got you,” I said, rocking her slightly. “I’ve got you. They’re gone.”
But as I held her there in the dust and the gloom, I knew Brody was right about one thing. This wasn’t over.
Men like Brody’s father—powerful men in small towns—don’t take kindly to strangers breaking their sons.
The war had just come home.
Chapter 4: The Sound of Sirens
The drive home was quiet.
I had parked my truck down the road, hidden behind a thicket of overgrown hedge. Emily sat in the passenger seat, staring out the window at the passing cornfields. The sun was setting, casting long, bloody shadows across the golden stalks.
She had stopped crying, but her silence was heavier than her tears. It was the silence of shock.
“How long?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the gravel road.
Emily didn’t answer for a long time. She traced the pattern on the seat with her finger.
“Since the start of the semester,” she finally said, her voice small. “Brody asked me out. I said no. He didn’t like that. He said… he said nobody says no to him.”
My grip on the steering wheel tightened until my knuckles turned white. The leather creaked under the pressure.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Or your mom?”
“Mom’s always working,” Emily said, defending her mother instinctively. “She’s tired. I didn’t want to worry her. And you…” She paused, glancing at me sideways. “You were… gone. Even when you came back, you were gone. You just stared at the porch railing all day.”
Her words hit me harder than any punch Brody could have thrown.
She was right. I had been physically present but mentally AWOL. I was so busy fighting my own demons that I hadn’t noticed the monsters circling my own family.
“I’m sorry, Em,” I said. “I’m here now. I promise.”
She looked at me, a flicker of a smile touching her lips. “You were scary back there, Uncle Jack. Like… like a movie character. But scary.”
“Sometimes you have to be scary to keep the bad things away,” I said. It was a poor excuse, but it was the only truth I had.
We pulled into the driveway. The old farmhouse looked warm and inviting, yellow light spilling from the kitchen windows. I could see Sarah’s silhouette moving around, probably starting dinner.
For a second, it looked like peace.
“Listen to me,” I said, putting the truck in park but leaving the engine running. “Go inside. Wash your face. Don’t tell your mom the details yet. Just tell her you’re okay.”
“What are you going to do?” Emily asked, panic flaring in her eyes again.
“I’m going to wait on the porch,” I said. “Go.”
She hesitated, then opened the door and ran toward the house. I watched her go inside. I saw Sarah hug her, saw the relief on my sister’s face.
I killed the engine. I stepped out and walked to the porch. I didn’t go inside. I sat on the swing, the chains groaning under my weight. I pulled out my whittling knife, but I didn’t use it. I just held it, feeling the texture of the handle.
I knew the clock was ticking.
Brody’s dad was Mayor intense. He owned the car dealership, half the real estate in town, and—unofficially—the Sheriff’s department. In a town like this, the law isn’t written in books; it’s written in handshakes and favors.
I had touched the untouchable. Retaliation wouldn’t be a letter in the mail. It would be swift.
I didn’t have to wait long.
Twenty minutes later, the blue and red lights cut through the darkness at the end of the road. No siren. Just the lights, flashing silently, ominous and predatory.
Two cruisers.
They rolled up the driveway slowly, crunching gravel. They parked side-by-side, blocking my truck.
I stayed on the swing. I didn’t stand up. I kept my hands visible, resting on my knees. I know the drill. Don’t give them a reason.
Two deputies got out of the first car. I didn’t recognize them. Young guys, looking nervous. Hands resting on their holsters.
Then the door of the second car opened.
Sheriff Miller. A big man with a gut that spilled over his belt and a mustache that had seen better decades. I knew Miller. We went to high school together. He was a bully then, and a badge hadn’t changed much except giving him a pension.
Miller walked up the steps, his thumbs hooked in his belt. He stopped at the bottom of the porch.
“Jack,” he nodded.
“Jim,” I replied.
“You caused quite a stir today, Jack,” Miller said, shaking his head. “Assault on minors. Three of them. One of them the Mayor’s boy. I hear you broke a kid’s wrist.”
“Self-defense,” I said calmly. “They were assaulting my niece. Attempted kidnapping, by the looks of it.”
Miller chuckled. It was a dry, humorless sound. “That’s not the story I got. Story I got is a crazy ex-soldier with PTSD snapped and attacked three varsity athletes who were just helping a girl carry her books.”
I felt the anger rise, hot and sharp. “They had her in the old mill, Jim. One of them pulled a knife.”
Miller’s face hardened. “I didn’t find a knife, Jack. And neither did my deputies. What we have are three boys in the hospital and a maniac sitting on a porch.”
He unhooked the thumb break on his holster.
“Stand up, Jack. Turn around. Hands behind your back.”
The front door opened. Sarah stood there, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Jim? What’s going on? Jack?”
“Go back inside, Sarah,” Miller barked.
“Jack?” Sarah’s voice trembled. She looked at the police, then at me.
I stood up slowly. I looked at Sarah. “It’s okay, Sarah. Go inside with Emily. Close the door.”
“But—”
“Do it,” I said gently.
She retreated, closing the door, but I saw her face pressed against the glass.
I walked down the steps. I turned around and offered my wrists.
As the cold steel of the handcuffs clicked shut, Miller leaned close to my ear.
“Mayor sends his regards,” he whispered. “He says you’re going to rot in here for a long time.”
They shoved me into the back of the cruiser. The hard plastic seat was uncomfortable, smelling of vomit and disinfectant.
As we drove away, I looked back at the house. The lights were still on.
I wasn’t worried about jail. I’ve been in holes deeper and darker than anything the county could provide. I was worried about what would happen to the farmhouse now that the watchdog was in a cage.
I had won the battle in the warehouse. But I had just walked right into the ambush of the war.
And I knew, sitting in the back of that cruiser, that getting bailed out wasn’t an option. I needed to break out. Or I needed a lawyer who was more dangerous than I was.
Fortunately, I had one phone call. And I wasn’t going to call a lawyer.
I was going to call the only person who owed me a life debt. A man I hadn’t spoken to in five years. A man who used to be my commanding officer, and who now worked in a place where “Mayors” were just civilians with titles.
The game was about to change.Chapter 5: The Cage
The county jail smelled of bleach, unwashed bodies, and despair. It’s a smell you never forget, distinct from the metallic tang of a battlefield, but just as suffocating.
Sheriff Miller didn’t bother with the niceties. There were no Miranda rights read in the car. No “watch your head” as they dragged me out. Just rough hands and shoves. They wanted a reaction. They wanted me to resist so they could add “assault on an officer” to the laundry list of charges they were fabricating.
I didn’t give them the satisfaction. I went limp, compliant, a ragdoll in their grip. It infuriated them.
They tossed me into the processing room. Miller leaned against the counter, peeling an orange with a pocket knife, watching his deputies strip me of my shoelaces, my belt, and the contents of my pockets.
“Aggravated assault,” Miller mused, tossing a piece of peel onto the floor. “Attempted murder. Child endangerment. Possibility of flight risk. Judge is gonna set bail so high you’d need to sell that farmhouse ten times over, Jack.”
“I get a phone call,” I said. My voice was raspy. I needed water, but I wasn’t going to ask.
Miller laughed. “Sure. Call your sister. Tell her to start packing. Mayor’s gonna take the house in the civil suit anyway.”
“I get a phone call,” I repeated, staring at him.
Miller sighed, feigning boredom. He nodded to a deputy. “Give him the phone. Let him cry to mommy.”
They shoved a receiver into my hand. It was an old wall unit, bolted to the cinder block. I dialed a number I had memorized six years ago. A number that didn’t exist in any public directory. A number that routed through three different relays before connecting.
It rang once. Twice.
“Status,” a voice answered. sharp, clear, no pleasantries.
“Broken Arrow,” I said.
There was a pause. A “Broken Arrow” in our old unit meant a unit was overrun and in imminent danger of destruction. It was the highest distress call we had.
“Verify,” the voice said.
“Echo. November. Seven. Sierra,” I recited—my old service number suffix. “Location: Pike County, Ohio. Sheriff’s Department. Hostiles are local law enforcement. Corruption level: High.”
“Is the asset secure?” the voice asked. He meant me.
“Asset is in custody,” I replied. “But the family is exposed. I need immediate extraction and containment.”
“Sit tight, Sergeant. The clock is running.”
The line went dead.
I hung up. Miller was staring at me, a confused frown creasing his forehead. He had expected a plea for bail money, not military code.
“Who was that?” Miller asked, stepping closer. “Who were you talking to?”
“Pizza delivery,” I said. “I ordered pepperoni.”
Miller’s face turned purple. He backhanded me. It was a solid hit, snapping my head to the side. I tasted blood.
“Throw him in the drunk tank,” Miller spat. “And put him in with the Razorbacks.”
The deputies exchanged nervous glances.
“Sheriff, the Razorbacks?” one of them whispered. “Those guys are meth heads. They’ll kill him.”
“That’s the point, deputy,” Miller growled. “Accidents happen in jail every day. Slip and fall in the shower. A fight over a bunk. It’s a tragedy.”
They dragged me down the hallway. The “drunk tank” wasn’t a solitary cell. It was a holding pen.
And Miller wasn’t lying. The “Razorbacks” were a local biker gang. I recognized the tattoos. Three of them were sitting on the metal bench, looking like they were waiting for a bus to hell. They were wiry, twitchy, their skin marked with sores. Withdrawal and rage.
The deputies opened the heavy steel door.
“Fresh meat, boys,” the deputy said, giving me a hard shove inside.
The door slammed shut with a deafening clang. The lock turned.
I stood in the center of the cell. The three bikers looked up. Their eyes were predatory. They saw a guy in a torn field jacket, older, alone. They saw prey.
One of them, a guy with a spiderweb tattoo covering his entire neck, stood up. He cracked his knuckles.
“Sheriff says we get extra commissary if we make you uncomfortable,” the man grinned. His teeth were yellow shards.
I sighed. I really didn’t want to do this. I was tired. My knee was throbbing. I just wanted to make sure Emily was safe.
But in a place like this, diplomacy is a weakness. Violence is the only language that translates.
“Gentlemen,” I said, rolling up my sleeves slowly. “You have been given bad information.”
“What’s that?” the tattooed man sneered, pulling a sharpened toothbrush shiv from his sock.
“You’re not locked in here with me,” I said, channeling a line I’d heard once in a movie, but meaning every syllable of it. “I’m locked in here with you.”
Chapter 6: The Longest Night
The fight didn’t last long. It never does when one side is fighting for cigarettes and the other is fighting for survival.
The man with the spiderweb tattoo lunged first. He was fast, fueled by chemicals, but he was undisciplined. He slashed the shiv toward my face.
I didn’t back up. I stepped into the attack. I caught his wrist, using his own momentum to drive him into the concrete wall. His head met the cinder block with a sound like a melon being dropped. He slid down the wall, unconscious before he hit the floor.
The other two hesitated. They looked at their fallen leader, then at me.
“Anyone else want extra commissary?” I asked. My voice was level, my breathing steady.
They sat back down on the bench, making themselves as small as possible. They tossed the remaining shiv onto the floor in front of me as an offering of surrender.
I kicked the shiv into the corner and sat on the opposite bench. I closed my eyes, leaning my head against the cold wall.
I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t. I spent the night running scenarios.
If the “Clock is running,” that meant Colonel Vance was moving. But Vance was in D.C. He was retired, working as a contractor now, but he still had pull. The question was, how much pull? And could he get it here before Miller decided to come back and finish the job himself?
Hours dragged by. The jail grew quiet, save for the occasional shout or the clanging of doors.
Around 4:00 AM, the door to the holding cell opened again.
I tensed, ready to spring. But it wasn’t Miller. It was a young deputy, looking terrified. He held a tray of food—stale bread and some gray sludge.
He slid it through the slot. He looked at the unconscious biker in the corner, then at me.
“Is he… is he dead?” the deputy whispered.
“Sleeping,” I said. “He had a long day.”
The deputy swallowed hard. “Sheriff is mad. Real mad. He’s on the phone with the Mayor. They’re talking about moving you to the state penitentiary in the morning. Before your arraignment.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
“Because my cousin is in Emily’s class,” the deputy murmured. “She told me what those guys did. What they’ve been doing to all the girls.” He looked over his shoulder. “Brody is a monster. But his dad owns this town. You… you did a good thing.”
“Then let me out,” I said.
“I can’t,” he said, his voice trembling. “I have a wife. A baby. If I help you, Miller will destroy us.”
“I understand,” I said. “Just do me one favor. If I don’t make it out of here, check on my sister. Watch the house.”
He nodded once, then hurried away.
Morning broke with the sound of heavy boots.
At 7:00 AM sharp, the door flew open. Sheriff Miller stood there, flanked by four deputies. He looked tired and mean. He had a cup of coffee in one hand and a baton in the other.
He looked at the unconscious biker, then at me. He sneered.
“Tough guy,” Miller said. “Get him up. Transport is here.”
Two deputies came in. They didn’t rough me up this time. They were wary. They handcuffed me and shackled my ankles.
They marched me out of the cell, down the hallway, toward the booking area. The plan was obvious: transfer me to a state facility where accidents were even easier to arrange, and where I’d be lost in the system for weeks.
We reached the front lobby of the Sheriff’s station.
“Sign him out,” Miller barked at the desk sergeant. “Get him in the van.”
“Hold it right there,” a voice boomed.
It wasn’t a local voice. It was deep, authoritative, and projected with the volume of a man who was used to commanding battalions.
Miller spun around.
Standing in the entrance of the station were three men.
The man in the center was older, maybe sixty, wearing a tailored charcoal suit that cost more than Miller made in a year. He had silver hair, a scar running down his cheek, and eyes that were cold as ice.
Behind him stood two younger men. They weren’t wearing suits. They were wearing tactical gear—plate carriers, sidearms, insignias on their shoulders that simply read “DOD.” Department of Defense.
“Who the hell are you?” Miller demanded, putting his hand on his gun. “This is a restricted area.”
The man in the suit walked forward. He didn’t rush. He moved with the terrifying confidence of absolute power.
“I am Colonel Marcus Vance,” he said. He reached into his jacket pocket.
Every deputy in the room tensed.
Vance pulled out a folded document and slapped it onto the booking desk.
“And you are illegally detaining a federal asset.”
Miller scoffed. “Federal asset? He’s a mechanic. A bum. He assaulted the Mayor’s son.”
“He is a Sergeant First Class, retired, with top-level clearance,” Vance said, his voice dripping with disdain. “And as of 0600 hours this morning, he has been reactivated for a debriefing regarding national security matters.”
“Reactivated?” Miller laughed. “You can’t just walk in here and—”
“I can,” Vance interrupted. “And I just did. That document is a writ of habeas corpus issued by a Federal Judge in the Southern District of Ohio. It supersedes your authority, Sheriff. It supersedes your Mayor. It supersedes God himself as far as you are concerned.”
Vance turned to look at me. He didn’t smile, but his eyes softened just a fraction.
“Unlock him,” Vance ordered the deputies.
The deputies looked at Miller. Miller’s face was red, veins bulging in his neck. He was losing control of his kingdom.
“This is bullshit!” Miller shouted. “I’m calling the Mayor!”
“You can call whoever you want,” Vance said calmly. “But if those cuffs aren’t off my man in ten seconds, I will have these two gentlemen behind me arrest you for obstruction of federal justice, kidnapping, and violation of civil rights under color of law. And Sheriff? Federal prison makes this place look like a day spa.”
Miller froze. He looked at the tactical agents. They were stone-faced, hands hovering near their MP5s.
He looked at the writ on the desk.
Slowly, painfully, Miller nodded to the deputy holding my arm.
“Cut him loose.”
The deputy fumbled with the keys. The cuffs clicked open. The shackles fell away.
I rubbed my wrists. I walked over to Vance.
“Took you long enough,” I muttered.
“Traffic was a bitch,” Vance replied. “Let’s go. We have work to do.”
We walked toward the door. I could feel Miller’s eyes drilling into my back.
“This isn’t over, Jack!” Miller yelled after us. “You can’t protect them forever! You have to sleep sometime!”
I stopped at the glass doors. I turned back.
“That’s the difference between you and me, Jim,” I said, my voice echoing in the silent lobby. “I don’t sleep.”
I walked out into the bright morning sun. A black SUV was waiting, engine running.
But as I climbed into the backseat, looking at the familiar cornfields across the street, I knew Miller was right about one thing. It wasn’t over. I had humiliated the Mayor and the Sheriff. I had escalated a high school grudge into a federal incident.
They wouldn’t come at me directly anymore. They were cowards.
They would go after Sarah. They would go after the farm.
I looked at Vance as the car pulled away.
“I need a favor, Colonel,” I said.
“I just broke you out of jail, Jack,” Vance said, lighting a cigar. “That was the favor.”
“No,” I said, looking at the grim expression on his face. “That was the rescue. Now I need a war chest.”